Landslide election results in Austria, Bavaria

[Ecthy]

In Austrian national elections, two far-right parties have gained a total of just under 30% of the vote as exit polls suggest. At the same time, both of the traditionally largest parties (social democrats, christian conservatives) have dropped below 30% individually, possibly perpetuating the grand coalition (imho).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7639805.stm

Austria's Social Democrats look set to win the most votes in an early election but far right parties have made significant gains, projections show.

Preliminary estimates as polls closed at 1500 GMT showed the far right Freedom Party with 18% of the vote.

The Social Democrats led with 29%, while the conservative People's Party were at 25%.

The elections were called after an 18-month-old Social Democrat coalition with the People's Party collapsed.

Polling samples conducted for Austrian TV suggested the far right party, the Alliance for Austria's Future, also did well, winning 12% of the vote, with the Greens taking 10.5%.

For the first time in an EU country, 16 and 17-year-olds were able to vote. This bloc represented about 200,000 of the 6.3 million-strong electorate.

[Heraclitus]

Freedom Party

[Ecthy]

At the same time, in Bavarian regional elections, the decades-long ruling party CSU (christian social union, state-wide sister of the national CDU or christian democrats) has dropped below 50% and reached a lifetime low of 43% this sunday. It thus loses an absolute majority it has held for decades and will either have to pick a coalition partner or lose government to a 4-party government of social democrats (19%), free democrats (pro-market) and "free voters", a joint movement of largely local forces. The newly-found Left party that had gained ground in German regional parliaments lately atfer its founding in 2007 has not made it into the Bavarian diet, failing the 5% threshold closely at a mere 4.7%.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,580977,00.html

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
Freedom Party

Austria has two options: a renewal of the former right-wing coalition under the people's party (ÖVP, conservatives) with the FPÖ and the BZÖ as partners. This is unlikely for the split between the two far-right parties' leaders.

The other option is the continuation of the grand coalition which would just perpetuate the rise of the far right.

[Riesstiu IV]

What would you say has caused gains for the far-right?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

they wanted more freedom, so they voted for freedom party, this sort of voting behavior is not endemically American...

and letting 16 & 17yo to vote move it to 21 or 25 and not down to 16?!?

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Riesstiu IV
What would you say has caused gains for the far-right?

I have no idea, but out of my ass I just say a mix of populism and fearmongering. Maybe Wernazuma can tell us.

[Ecthy]

Can't be the grand coalition alone, since Austria has had those for decades before.

Let me take a guess: the conservative party failed to modernize. All over Europe the social democrats are struggling, but in most cases to the benefit of the conservatives or stronger left leaning parties. But then this approach is very generalizing, and a view from an insider would be most welcome.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Re: Landslide election results in Austria, Bavaria

Originally posted by Ecthy
In Austrian national elections, two far-right parties have gained a total of just under 30% of the vote as exit polls suggest. At the same time, both of the traditionally largest parties (social democrats, christian conservatives) have dropped below 30% individually, [/q]

Landslide?

[Riesstiu IV]

Originally posted by BeBro


I have no idea, but out of my ass I just say a mix of populism and fearmongering. Maybe Wernazuma can tell us.

Do far-right still hate teh Jews are have they moved on the Gypsies and Turks?

[Ecthy]

Re: Re: Landslide election results in Austria, Bavaria

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp

Landslide?

Both aspects of the result are unexpected in comparison to both the diet's composition before the election as well as latest polls. It's a landslide gain for the far right.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

That's what you get when you give kids the vote. Deep down, they're all nazis.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Riesstiu IV


Do far-right still hate teh Jews are have they moved on the Gypsies and Turks?

There are lots of targets for aspiring ultra right wingers these days, like leftists, Gypsies, muslims, Americans, or the EU. Jews are probably still the classic, but some time ago them ultra right wingers killed so much that they now don't have many left to hate.

See how stupid they are? If they were smart they would just whine about teh Joos oppressing the world like militant Islamists whine about the great shaitan USA! As long as they don't destroy the US they always have plenty to whine about. That's intelligent whine-management.

[Heraclitus]

I think they are. There is no way they can get rid of a billion Muslims around the world and 70 million Muslims in Europe.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Riesstiu IV


Do far-right still hate teh Jews are have they moved on the Gypsies and Turks?

Not the Jews in particular, but just about all foreign people, whatever origin those people have.


Surprisingly Haider's BZÖ is relatively moderate. BZÖ is an offshoot of the FPÖ that Haider created in 2005 after intense intra-party disagreement. On top of that the conservaties were struggling with the FPÖ as well. FPÖ officials even openly discredited and laughed at them iirc. Haider made the best of a bad job and quit the party in favour of his new BZÖ which is equally populistic, but amazing as it may seem it is decidedly the lesser evil in Austria. Another surprising element is that in contrast to Le Pen in France, and the likes of Dewinter in Flanders Haider managed to reinvent himself. After his demise in 2005 (FPO left government in 2006 I believe) he was considered a political corpse. Somehow (I haven't followed Austrian politics that closely) he retained his charisma and rallied voters again.

More importantly I dispute Ecthy's term landslide. 30% is a lot, but remember that in '99 FPÖ single handedly gained 27% (thx wikipedia ). In fact the two parties merely split the voters. Austria has an inherent extremist right base, so it doesn't come as much of a surprise.

It's possible Haider and BZÖ will make a comeback.

Current leader of FPÖ Heinz-Christian Strache has elevated xenophobism, populism and demagoguery to a new level out there. He learned from Haider and increased the hatespeech a notch.

That said, it's not a party anyone else would want to have a coalition with. Too extremist for everyone except BZÖ but they're not on good terms. Maybe the greens would be the alternative, and a good one I might add!
Then again it's Austria, and I wouldn't hope too much for that...